All the horses in video games have poor genes.

[Loony BoB]

Because damn they're so slooooow. It actually defies gravity on occasion. I remember in Assassin's Creed (1, the original) I was impressed with the horse speed as you could get into a real gallop. But in II and Brotherhood, oh man. So many video games suffer from this - I think TES was mentioned by Mike in XIV chat just now as another example. So, in this thread, discuss the use of horses in video games and their speed. Which has the fastest horse? Which has the slowest? Which horses are best all round? Which use them in peculiar ways? Horsey time.

[Ayen]

Only horses I ever rode on were Epona and the horse in AC2. I think the AC2 horse was faster, but Epona is just better overall because nostalgia.

[Bubba]

Nah, some of them were pretty fast I thought. When you get Epona up to her fourth or fifth carrot she is properly flying. Agro from Shadow of the Colossus probably wasn't the fastest but dammit man... she did her job!

Probably the fastest though were the ones that Drake rode in Uncharted 3. They kept pace with those cars at any rate which is good enough for me.

Also, the Kentucky Saddler from Red Dead Redemption waves a hoof.

[TrollHunter]

Well, there's the skyrim horse. I'm not sure if its genes are bad or ridiculously godlike though. They're not super fast... but they can break physics. That has to count for something right?

[Pike]

There's a lore reason for why the Skyrim horses are slow which is that they are bred to traverse rugged terrain, not to go fast. The Oblivion horses are considerably faster because you know, the well groomed roads of Cyrodiil*, but they're also much more fragile.

Fun fact: There's also a lore reason for why there are no horses in Morrowind. The Dunmer eat them!

Now World of Warcraft has got some fast horses. Also flying horses. And ghost horses. And all sorts of fun things.





* Which used to be a thick rainforesty jungle and not a nice quiet countryside but then Tiber Septim showed up and turned it into England because he discovered CHIM and wanted to show off although let's all be honest rainforesty Cyrodiil would have been so much cooler THANKS TALOS

[Spuuky]

Red Hare is pretty fast.

Horses aren't really THAT fast. They certainly aren't as fast as average or even slow cars. And they typically don't gallop everywhere, because that would exhaust them incredibly quickly. Do you want to deal with horse stamina in your games?

[TrollHunter]

There's a lore reason for why the Skyrim horses are slow which is that they are bred to traverse rugged terrain, not to go fast. The Oblivion horses are considerably faster because you know, the well groomed roads of Cyrodiil*, but they're also much more fragile.

And they're definitely very good at that.
It's impressive really.

[Old Manus]

People are too used to seeing racehorses. Flat track thoroughbreds have serious gas, but they're bred to race, not carry people over long distances. Real horses are nowhere near that kind of speed even at full gallop.

[Pike]

Yeah, that's also very true. A racing thoroughbred can go about 1 1/4 miles at a ~35mph gallop, presuming they're carrying a tiny individual (jockeys weigh like 110lbs) who is balanced over their withers in such a way that they can maintain maximum speed. A quarter horse can go upwards of 45mph but for a much shorter distance (hence the name "quarter horse" - this speed can only be maintained for a quarter mile or less) and that's going to be about as fast as a horse can get.

An every day horse, carrying an everyday load and going for a long distance, probably isn't going to often top 20-25mph.

[Sephiroth]

Slepnir/Slavenil for Odin
Ruin for War
Despair for Death

Pretty cool and powerful horses.

[Pete for President]

"AGROOO!"

[Del Murder]

The Red Dead horses were pretty fast. Also horse stamina does exist in games. The only horse I ever thought was too slow was the one in Shadow of Colossus.

[Fynn]

Maybe they're all just coldbloods? That makes sense, cause they're not as temperamental as the faster hotbloods.

[Dr Unne]

Ruin for War
Despair for Death

No complaints about Darksiders horse speed. Granted, they are demon horses. They kind of have horse stamina too, for doing short dashes, but it regenerates fast.

Chocobo speed in FFXIV was pretty annoyingly slow, come to think of it.

[Sephiroth]

Ruin for War
Despair for Death

No complaints about Darksiders horse speed. Granted, they are demon horses. They kind of have horse stamina too, for doing short dashes, but it regenerates fast.

Chocobo speed in FFXIV was pretty annoyingly slow, come to think of it.

I did not complain about them as you might see with my last line.